The Eleventh Annual Generative Anthropology Summer Conference was held at Stockholm University on June 10-12, hosted by GA stalwart Marina Ludwigs, who is a professor in the English Department here. It featured three keynote speakers and 23 other sessions (including three Skype sessions). There were presentations by a remarkable 14 first-time participants, many of them graduate students and junior faculty.

We thank Stockholm University and its English Department for their contribution to the conference, as well as for the friendly, positive (and apolitical) atmosphere that reigned throughout. Special thanks are due Marina for putting it all together, as well as to Ben Matthews, who built the conference website and provided other assistance, Skyping in his paper from Australia.

The banquet in one of Stockholm’s classic waterfront restaurants was also a great success. Participants enjoyed the long, cool, sunlit June evenings in this northern city where the streets remained crowded until midnight, as well as its many museums and historic monuments.

Plans are already under way for next year’s conference, to be hosted by Magdalena Złocka-Dąbrowska in Warsaw.

Opening words by Matsuto Sowa, President
Institute for the Study of Christian Culture, Kinjo Gakuin University

Almost exactly one year after the passing of RenéGirard (December 25, 1923 – November 4, 2015), this one day event honors his legacy with lectures and a symposium focusing on the impact of his mimetic theory, particularly on the Christian doctrine of atonement, as well as Christian-Buddhist dialogue. Extending a dialogue begun at the 10th Annual Conference of the Generative Anthropology held at Kinjo Gakuin University in June, 2016, this event brings together prominent Girard scholars (Paul Dumouchel and Jeremiah Alberg), Buddhist scholar Musashi Tachikawa, and scholars associated with Kinjo Gakuin University (Sumio Takeda, Kiyoshi Kawahara, and Matthew Taylor).

This event is supported by the Institute for the Study of Christian Culture of Kinjo University. It is free and open to the public. Lunch is available for 1,000 yen if pre-ordered. Refreshments will be available during breaks. Lectures and discussion will be primarily in English.

The Tenth Annual Generative Anthropology Summer Conference was held June 17-19 at the Kinjo Gakuin University in Nagoya, Japan. The organization by Matthew and Emi Taylor and Kiyoshi Kawahara was flawless and included simultaneous translations of many of the papers. The conference was dedicated to the memory of René Girard, who passed away last November.

The conference home page, with links to the program and notes on the speakers, may be found at

On Mach 17, 2016, Adam Katz and Eric Gans participated in a launching presentation of their new book, The First Shall Be the Last: Rethinking Antisemitism (Leiden: Brill, 2015), at the ISGAP headquarters in New York City, 165 E 56th Street, followed by a question period. Their book is the first in a series of studies sponsored by ISGAP (The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy).

René Girard, without whose thought Generative Anthropology would not exist, died at the age of 91 on November 4, 2015. A memorial mass was held for him at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Palo Alto, California on November 14.

The Spring 2016 issue (21, 2) of Anthropoetics will be a special issue in his honor.